Support NeoGAF

[The Shogun]

It's not really. They haven't announced any japanese releases for the Xbox since FFXV and KHII except Type-0 and the caviot there is it came with the FFXV demo so that seems the most obvious reason to release it. I honestly think they are waiting on Type-0 and FFXV numbers and then deciding whether it's worth it to keep supporting the Xbox.

You don't find it a little strange the SE PS2 games have never been on anything but Playstation ever? Even with SE showing they are ok with putting FF everywhere. They ported the whole Lightning series to PC and yet last gen never released FFX HD on 360 even though it was market leader in NA by a very large margin and had already put the XIII games on it?

There may not be a contract or deal in place. That is entirely possible. But given SE like to port on to anything they can including DS, ios, Android, PC, Xbox etc. It just seem weird how those specific PS2 games have never landed anywhere else.

 

[Conduit]

Abdiel/Shogun

How is Bloodborne doing?

 

[N.Domixis]

You don't find it a little strange the SE PS2 games have never been on anything but Playstation ever? Even with SE showing they are ok with putting FF everywhere. They ported the whole Lightning series to PC and yet last gen never released FFX HD on 360 even though it was market leader in NA by a very large margin and had already put the XIII games on it?

There may not be a contract or deal in place. That is entirely possible. But given SE like to port on to anything they can including DS, ios, Android, PC, Xbox etc. It just seem weird how those specific PS2 games have never landed anywhere else.

Too lazy to change the ps2 promps to other consoles.

 

[Mrbob]

Originally there was something in the works with that but things changed after Wada stepped down.

Sony would be wasting money to have an exclusive. The large bulk of sales will be on PS4 anyway. Sony benefited with Wada stepping down.

 

[The Shogun]

Abdiel/Shogun

How is Bloodborne doing?

I'll wait to give my personal NPD prediction (which in no way represents my employer or company that I work for) till probably the March NPD predictions thread.

But for the type of game it is its doing plenty strongly. I'm also expecting high review scores. Should be a nice success for From / Sony

 

[NateDrake]

I'll wait to give my personal NPD prediction (which is in no way represents my employer or company that I work for) till probably the March NPD predictions thread.

But for the type of getting it is its doing plenty strongly. I'm also expecting high review scores. Should be a nice success for From / Sony

I'm expecting Bloodborne to be a slow-burner. It'll launch fairly strong for its genre in the NA market, but high review scores and positive word of mouth will keep it selling - even at low levels - for several months. I could see a fair number of people looking to ditch their copy of 1886 and use that credit or cash to get Bloodborne.

 

[Game Guru]

I get the feeling that the combination of ignoring every market besides the US, not allowing games to be cross-platform with PC, and the indie parity clause are hurting MS in the long run. It will just lead to PS4 getting a larger library of games with more variety which when added to PS4 having better hardware than XB1 makes PS4 the obvious choice for anyone wanting a single console and not interested in any of XB1's exclusives. Even if people won't buy those games, the fact that PS4 gets more games in a variety of genres will convince people to get it. That's not even considering the XB1 is doing horrendously in any place that isn't the US, and even then, MS had to sell the system for $50 less in the US to even get a relatively close race there.

If MS still wants to succeed against PlayStation, they have got to stop ignoring the rest of the world for just the US. They have got to treat indies with the same respect Sony does. They need to allow for games on their console to be cross-platform with PC.

 

[The Shogun]

I'm expecting Bloodborne to be a slow-burner. It'll launch fairly strong for its genre in the NA market, but high review scores and positive word of mouth will keep it selling - even at low levels - for several months. I could see a fair number of people looking to ditch their copy of 1886 and use that credit or cash to get Bloodborne.

Yeah it'll have legs I bet.

And launch sales are going to be more impressive than I thought a month ago by what I was thinking. Not sure if it will outperform Sony or From's expectations of course.

 

[NateDrake]

Yeah it'll have legs I bet.

And launch sales are going to be more impressive than I thought a month ago by what I was thinking. Not sure if it will outperform Sony or From's expectations of course.

I'm expecting almost Demon's Souls type of legs from the game. The second-hand market should be minimal due to the length of the game. Those who unknowingly buy the game and frustrated with it may be quick to sell, but that will be a minor impact.

 

[TomShoe]

I get the feeling that the combination of ignoring every market besides the US, not allowing games to be cross-platform with PC, and the indie parity clause are hurting MS in the long run. It will just lead to PS4 getting a larger library of games with more variety which when added to PS4 having better hardware than XB1 makes PS4 the obvious choice for anyone wanting a single console and not interested in any of XB1's exclusives. Even if people won't buy those games, the fact that PS4 gets more games in a variety of genres will convince people to get it. That's not even considering the XB1 is doing horrendously in any place that isn't the US, and even then, MS had to sell the system for $50 less in the US to even get a relatively close race there.

If MS still wants to succeed against PlayStation, they have got to stop ignoring the rest of the world for just the US. They have got to treat indies with the same respect Sony does. They need to allow for games on their console to be cross-platform with PC.

Everything you mentioned has been hurting Xbox for years now. We just didn't notice because the 360 was so successful. Now that there's no margin, all the flaws are being exposed.

 

[Game Guru]

Everything you mentioned has been hurting Xbox for years now. We just didn't notice because the 360 was so successful. Now that there's no margin, all the flaws are being exposed.

To be fair, MS cared initially with the 360 about a market like Japan, created the digital market for consoles, and allowed games to be cross-platform with PC, but they just devolved in those aspects about the time the Kinect came on the scene.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Originally there was something in the works with that but things changed after Wada stepped down.

Which is funny looking back at it .
SE could have took Sony money and still sell huge amount .
Whats even more funny is the TR deal happen afterwards .

 

[EGM1966]

To be fair, MS cared initially with the 360 about a market like Japan, created the digital market for consoles, and allowed games to be cross-platform with PC, but they just devolved in those aspects about the time the Kinect came on the scene.

They didn't realy devolve I'd say. Is say it was more the case they got successful enough they thought they could push harder for a closed ecosystem and lay foundation for linking Xbox with PC and Mobile.

In a sense the latter years of 360 and XB1 were more a case of "true colours" at least with respect to the strategy behind having Xbox in the first place.

I'm not sure what current strategy is as they haven't actually made it clear yet but with Nadella in charge and Spencer working to stabilise their place in the market I'm sure it's changing - hopefully for the better. We've had hints but no clear "this is our strategy for Xbox and Live" positioning unless I've blinked and missed it.

 

[allan-bh]

Final Fantasy XIII standalone (there was a 360 bundle too) opened with ~63% on PS3 and ~37% on 360.

At the time X360 had ~7.7m advantage on install base. Prospects doesn't look good for FF XV on Xbox One, at least 70%/30% in favour of PS4 probably will happen, if not more.

The question is if this low percentage will represent good enough sales.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Things will be very interesting if the inevitable KH HD ports are PS4 only.

I expect KH HD collection to be PS4 exclusive....as well as FF12 HD (maybe a Vita port) and in general spin offs if Type-0 Hd sales are as bad as they are being made out. Heck Type-1 may not even come out on XB1.

Stuff like KH3 and FFXV are still a lock though. Even with low percentages those games could still sell a lot on the console. If anything was going to change SE's mind about XB1 versions of its big mainline games it is either going to be due to FFXV's sales or if Sony steps in.

 

[yazanov]

Does Sony post digital sales of their games? Because I'm curious to know what are the digital sales for Bloodborne and the Order.

I live in the Dubai and most of my purchases are from the US PS store. Convenience factor is the main reason for me buying games online, instead of retail.

 

[archnemesis]

Does Sony post digital sales of their games? Because I'm curious to know what are the digital sales for Bloodborne and the Order.

No, those numbers are generally not shared with the public.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The mind feels at the thought of FF XIV PC players and Xbox One players segmented to a server where PS3 and PS4 players could not reach if PS3/PS4 players were meant to play with PC players. How would that work? Was Square offering to segment the PlaySttion owners to servers without PC players?

Anyways, not allowing cross platform play for MMO's is a really bad move...

 

[allan-bh]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first week split on UK:

PS4 (78%)
XBO (22%)

 

[John Bender]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first week split on UK:

PS4 (78%)
XBO (22%)

lol wow....
Expected, but still funny to see.

 

[Conduit]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first week split on UK:

PS4 (78%)
XBO (22%)

As expected. I expect similar results for March NPD

 

[On Demand]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first week split on UK:

PS4 (78%)
XBO (22%)

Now imagine the U.S. and world wide. I'm sorry if this sounds selfish, but Square should just focus on the PS4 and taking advantage of the hardware instead of having to deal with two platforms. One where it's going to take them more time to get to the same level of the PS4 version. I understand they want to reach a new audience, but that audience is just not there on XB1.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

Now imagie the U.S. And world wide. I'm sorry if this sounds selfish, but Square should just focus on the PS4 and taking advantage of the hardware instead of having to deal with two platforms. One where it's going to take them more time to get to the same level of the PS4 version. I understand they want to reach a new audeince, but that audeince is just not there on XB1.

22% of something is better than 100% of nothing. It's probably not that much work to make it run on the xb1 so why not make that extra money? We know that they could use every penny they get these days.

 

[On Demand]

22% of something is better than 100% of nothing. It's probably not that much work to make it run on the xb1 so why not make that extra money? We know that they could use every penny they get these days.

Whatever small amount of money they make from the XB1 version will be more than made up on PS4. The market is so small on XB1 that it'll easily transition over to PS4.

 

[Zil33184]

22% of something is better than 100% of nothing. It's probably not that much work to make it run on the xb1 so why not make that extra money? We know that they could use every penny they get these days.

I wonder what the split will be for FFXV since unlike Type-0 we're unlikely to see parity between both versions. If the PS4 version made up 95% of worldwide sales I'd say it wasn't worth the extra development time and QA for the Xbox version.

 

[The Shogun]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD first week split on UK:

PS4 (78%)
XBO (22%)

Yeah no surprise there honestly. PS4 will be the de facto console for all of these JRPGs

 

[Birgitte2004]

22% of something is better than 100% of nothing. It's probably not that much work to make it run on the xb1 so why not make that extra money? We know that they could use every penny they get these days.

It's surprising how much cost that "not much work" turns out to actually be. 22% of something with additional cost is not guaranteed to be better than 100% of nothing.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

I wonder what the split will be for FFXV since unlike Type-0 we're unlikely to see parity between both versions. If the PS4 version made up 95% of worldwide sales I'd say it wasn't worth the extra development time and QA for the Xbox version.

Whatever small amount of money they make from the XB1 version will be more than made up on PS4. The market is so small on XB1 that it'll easily transition over to PS4.

It's surprising how much cost that "not much work" turns out to actually be. 22% of something with additional cost is not guaranteed to be better than 100% of nothing.

Well, if you also want to sell Final Fantasy XV-2 and Final Fantasy XV-3 and make as much money as possible then, yeah, you do the work needed to get the game working on 2 consoles that, unlike the ps3 and 360, are at pretty comparable levels of power and maximize your profits. It isn't as if your xb1 sales are cannibalizing whatever your ps4 sales would be and any real hard work needed to get the game up and running on the ps4 will transfer over to the xb1 one.

Hell, just drop the resolution on the XB1 version if that's so hard to pull off and call it a night. It would still be a better effort than what they put into FFXIII on the 360 and that sold 500k on release and was a total piece of shit port. Again, it's easy money and a bad move not to have it come out on the xb1, there's no real justifying that not releasing it on that platform is a good move outside of possibly some weird console war hangups that some people may have.

 

[Kagari]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD PS4 (78%) - > 16,095
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD One (22%) - > 4,480

 

[protomouse]

Now imagine the U.S. and world wide. I'm sorry if this sounds selfish, but Square should just focus on the PS4 and taking advantage of the hardware instead of having to deal with two platforms. One where it's going to take them more time to get to the same level of the PS4 version. I understand they want to reach a new audience, but that audience is just not there on XB1.

I will never understand why people argue for exclusivity just so they can have a slightly more optimized version, at the cost of snubbing millions of people on the other console. It is indeed a selfish argument. The very same was thrown around for FF XIII on 360, and it was just as silly back then as it is today. IIRC, the split there was about 50/50 for the first game, so there is indeed room for growth for Final Fantasy on Xbox consoles (and PC, judging by how well FF XIII did on Steam). Unless something spectacular happens, I can't see the franchise ever going back to exclusivity (especially given how much money these games cost to produce in terms of sheer content).

 

[SnowFlakeCake]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD PS4 (78%) - > 16,095
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD One (22%) - > 4,480

The numbers are generally low but still the gap ain't exactly small. I think my 70/30 split in favour of the PS4 outside Japan is going to be the absolute best case scenario for the XB1 which is laughable to think about. The FFXIII split in NA was much closer but didn't MS also have marketing rights? I remember that awful Leona Lewis advert here in the UK and MS had the rights here, no clue what MS were thinking then. Well I do, they thought 360 was the answer to their prayers in NA and that sure the fuck was not the case.

Does anyone know what studio is working on KH3? If it's Osaka then the game should not be too far after FF XV, Team Osaka have their shit together and are able to get things done. For NA, sales split for western titles will be fun to watch as they should be pretty close between consoles. Japanese titles will be fun to watch in terms of by how much the PS4 version blows away the XB1 versions.

 

[The Shogun]

The numbers are generally low but still the gap ain't exactly small. I think my 70/30 split in favour of the PS4 outside Japan is going to be the absolute best case scenario for the XB1 which is laughable to think about. The FFXIII split in NA was much closer but didn't MS also have marketing rights? I remember that awful Leona Lewis advert here in the UK and MS had the rights here, no clue what MS were thinking then. Well I do, they thought 360 was the answer to their prayers in NA and that sure the fuck was not the case.

Does anyone know what studio is working on KH3? If it's Osaka then the game should not be too far after FF XV, Team Osaka have their shit together and are able to get things done. For NA, sales split for western titles will be fun to watch as they should be pretty close between consoles. Japanese titles will be fun to watch in terms of by how much the PS4 version blows away the XB1 versions.

There is also a large chunk of PS4 owners that were on the 360 last gen. The percentages this gen on pretty much every title will favor the PS4. There will be a few select exceptions but in general the PS4 multi plats will outperform the Xbone counterparts. That number will just be further gapped on Japanese titles which Sony already owned the market share on.

That being said I do expect a closer (though still far apart) split in NA.

 

[Nightengale]

The numbers are generally low but still the gap ain't exactly small. I think my 70/30 split in favour of the PS4 outside Japan is going to be the absolute best case scenario for the XB1 which is laughable to think about. The FFXIII split in NA was much closer but didn't MS also have marketing rights? I remember that awful Leona Lewis advert here in the UK and MS had the rights here, no clue what MS were thinking then. Well I do, they thought 360 was the answer to their prayers in NA and that sure the fuck was not the case.

Does anyone know what studio is working on KH3? If it's Osaka then the game should not be too far after FF XV, Team Osaka have their shit together and are able to get things done. For NA, sales split for western titles will be fun to watch as they should be pretty close between consoles. Japanese titles will be fun to watch in terms of by how much the PS4 version blows away the XB1 versions.

It's Osaka.

With that being said, last we heard, Nomura's still doing stuff like choosing which worlds and designing costumes... Sounds like still in pre-production phase. :/

 

[Zil33184]

Well, if you also want to sell Final Fantasy XV-2 and Final Fantasy XV-3 and make as much money as possible then, yeah, you do the work needed to get the game working on 2 consoles that, unlike the ps3 and 360, are at pretty comparable levels of power and maximize your profits. It isn't as if your xb1 sales are cannibalizing whatever your ps4 sales would be and any real hard work needed to get the game up and running on the ps4 will transfer over to the xb1 one.

Hell, just drop the resolution on the XB1 version if that's so hard to pull off and call it a night. It would still be a better effort than what they put into FFXIII on the 360 and that sold 500k on release and was a total piece of shit port. Again, it's easy money and a bad move not to have it come out on the xb1, there's no real justifying that not releasing it on that platform is a good move outside of possibly some weird console war hangups that some people may have.

It'll be hard to weigh the pros and cons without actual information. Maybe we should start by quantifying how well the Xbox version would have to do in order to justify it.

I think these games will come out on both consoles for the reasons you mentioned, but this gen there is much less incentive to do it. First off the XBO doesn't have a commanding lead in NA or the UK like the 360 did. With the PS4 ahead in those markets I'm skeptical XV on XBO will come anywhere near replicating XIII's sales on 360.

Also while the two consoles are more architecturally similar this gen, they're further apart in performance. The 360 versions of FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns were practically at parity with the PS3 versions, whereas the PS4 will probably always have a glaring lead in performance and visual quality.

There might also be additional resource costs associated with supporting the Xbox that we're just not able to factor in. Perhaps certain effects or engine features are scaled back or removed from the game entirely. PS4 is more adept at leveraging asynchronous compute, but it's questionable whether SE will take advantage of this when they have to support a platform that doesn't have the same capability. There's probably some impact on development time trying to ship two versions. Maybe the extra time would be better spent working on airship traversal or adding character switching.

If cutting one version could result in a better game for *95% of the potential audience I'd say the Xbox version wasn't worth it in the end.

*hypothetical estimate, no actual basis in reality

 

[Conduit]

Repost from PAL thread. Even if this is NPD thread. If someone posted FF Type-0 results, so i can this.

Damn! I've been waiting for this. Amazon UK hourly chart!

 

[John Harker]

There's plenty of literature in estimation of demand and elasticities based on limited data like sales rankings.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024634613982
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27645744?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

The sufficient condition for estimation is that the data is representative, not that only rankings are available.

I'm not arguing that I can do just as good as job as if I had the complete dataset; Only that the limited data available *is* informative.



Same deal here; The relevant information is how representative the sample is relative to the population. The market share, conditional on it being large enough for consistency, is irrelevant.

You still have to assume that the specific Amazon shopper is an accurate representation of the actual shopper for the game as a whole. This isn't always the case.

 

[Mrbob]

Im not really understanding the need to have a square games exclusive on ps4 other than bragging rights. The ps4 split is large enough it is almost like having an exclusive in the first place.

Square needs to get their new games on Steam.

 

[RBK]

Im not really understanding the need to have a square games exclusive on ps4 other than bragging rights.

Well that's kind of the whole point of a exclusive.

 

[Mrbob]

I know but we are talking about a 3rd party. Type 0 share is looking to be 75% plus, maybe 80% plus on PS4 worldwide. The bragging rights are already there. Seems silly to want to deny others from playing the game even if that percentage is small.

 

[Birgitte2004]

I will never understand why people argue for exclusivity just so they can have a slightly more optimized version, at the cost of snubbing millions of people on the other console. It is indeed a selfish argument. The very same was thrown around for FF XIII on 360, and it was just as silly back then as it is today. IIRC, the split there was about 50/50 for the first game, so there is indeed room for growth for Final Fantasy on Xbox consoles (and PC, judging by how well FF XIII did on Steam). Unless something spectacular happens, I can't see the franchise ever going back to exclusivity (especially given how much money these games cost to produce in terms of sheer content).

Selfishness is a two way street.

You could call it equally selfish to demand a company spend money making a product to reach you simply so you won't have to buy a product you don't want.

And you are way off on thinking there was a 50/50 split for Final Fantasy XIII for PS3/360.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Well that's kind of the whole point of a exclusive.

And because PR usually justifies an exclusive announcement with "we can make our game better by focusing on one platform." Dunno whether its true or not, but sounds logical.

Exclusive titles do seem to be the more visually impressive

 

[Asd202]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD PS4 (78%) - > 16,095
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD One (22%) - > 4,480

Well US and UK will be the only regions where Type-0 HD will sell around 20% of total sales. I expect XV to have around 80/20 split in favor of PS4 worldwide.

 

[Darryl]

Does anybody understand the logic behind SE's choice of platforms?

For example, why did they consider Type-0 HD on XB1 a good idea when they apparently didn't think FFX/X-2, KH1.5, or KH2.5 on 360 were good ideas? The latter seem like a better idea than the former. And why are they bringing FFX/X-2 to ps4 but not XB1?

There's no consistency.

The PS2 games could be restricted to Sony only platforms because of contractual garbage. Thier choice of platforms has always been inconsistent.

 

[Kagari]

Well US and UK will be the only regions where Type-0 HD will sell around 20% of total sales. I expect XV to have around 80/20 split in favor of PS4 worldwide.

Expecting more like 90/10 at this point considering the rest of Europe/Japan/Asia/Middle East etc.

Worldwide for FF13 was 80/20 split and that was with the 360 dominating in the US and UK.

 

[Kasper]

I wonder if poor Xbox One performance will end up hurting the possibilities of these titles eventually making it over to PC. I could see Square Enix coming to the conclusion that if a title doesn't perform well on the secondary platform (which I assume they view the Xbox One as), then it certainly wouldn't on the tertiary.

 

[protomouse]

And you are way off on thinking there was a 50/50 split for Final Fantasy XIII for PS3/360.

Yeah, I might be misassociating that figure, but I do remember seeing it. Oh, well .

 

[Fdkn]

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD PS4 (78%) - > 16,095
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD One (22%) - > 4,480

I thought those are not the sales but the minimun estimated through GTA V known numbers for that week?

 

[jryi]

Well, if you also want to sell Final Fantasy XV-2 and Final Fantasy XV-3 and make as much money as possible then, yeah, you do the work needed to get the game working on 2 consoles that, unlike the ps3 and 360, are at pretty comparable levels of power and maximize your profits. It isn't as if your xb1 sales are cannibalizing whatever your ps4 sales would be and any real hard work needed to get the game up and running on the ps4 will transfer over to the xb1 one.

I wouldn't say that it's definitely better business decision to also publish the game on Xbox One. Factors at play here:

• porting cost: sure, the assets are pretty much the same and with proper middleware, porting the code is rather simple. But you still need to do double QA and release work. There are some costs.
• overlap in audience: there are 20M PS4s and 10M Xbox Ones, but these are not completely separate install bases. There are probably those, who would rather buy the game on Xbox, but if that version is not available, they'll go with PS4 version. These are the sales that fall in Xbox bracket, but would not be lost sales if that version didn't exist
• entry barrier crossers: there are those, who do not own a PS4, but if FF was only on that console, they would get one. Again, sales in the current situation go for Xbox, but from SE point-of-view, these would still be sales even without Xbox version
• possible marketing support from Sony: Sony doesn't do this too much, and I am not sure they would see too much benefit in supporting marketing for a game that would sell tons on PS4 even if it they didn't tell anybody. But they might, and this would possibly offset the rest of the lost revenue.

In the end, SE may make more money by publishing the game on Xbox One, but it's possible that they would have made more profit by only publishing it on PS4. I haven't seen them show a lot of business savvy lately, so I'm not sure if they have made any business calculations. On anything, after 2008.

 

[noobie]

I wouldn't say that it's definitely better business decision to also publish the game on Xbox One. Factors at play here:

• porting cost: sure, the assets are pretty much the same and with proper middleware, porting the code is rather simple. But you still need to do double QA and release work. There are some costs.
• overlap in audience: there are 20M PS4s and 10M Xbox Ones, but these are not completely separate install bases. There are probably those, who would rather buy the game on Xbox, but if that version is not available, they'll go with PS4 version. These are the sales that fall in Xbox bracket, but would not be lost sales if that version didn't exist
• entry barrier crossers: there are those, who do not own a PS4, but if FF was only on that console, they would get one. Again, sales in the current situation go for Xbox, but from SE point-of-view, these would still be sales even without Xbox version
• possible marketing support from Sony: Sony doesn't do this too much, and I am not sure they would see too much benefit in supporting marketing for a game that would sell tons on PS4 even if it they didn't tell anybody. But they might, and this would possibly offset the rest of the lost revenue.

In the end, SE may make more money by publishing the game on Xbox One, but it's possible that they would have made more profit by only publishing it on PS4. I haven't seen them show a lot of business savvy lately, so I'm not sure if they have made any business calculations. On anything, after 2008.

Well put.. but what if MS support them on publishing on XB ONE.. already MS is supporting them on TR. so i think if SE thinks about going only on PS4, MS will know it well in advance and will be there to make them reverse the decision.

 

[Wiggy]

Bloodborne SE and CE sold out on US amazon, just 3rd party sellers now.